Toddler Raising Quotables

The boy has been coming up with all kinds of wonderful quips lately, so I thought I'd share a few.

The other night he brought me Benjamin Bunny from the Peter Rabbit collection to read. I read the title aloud, "Benjamin Bunny", to which he replied "Benjamin Bunny, by Beatrix Potter". I usually read the author, illustrator, and sometimes the publisher. Guess that he's been listening.

He's taken to saying "Thank you sir" after we help him put on his shoes or pants. We're not sure where he picked up the "sir".

We had an inch of rain today and are in the process of getting another inch tonight. He insisted on wandering around the yard tramping in puddles from when it was quite dusky to when it was true blue night, in the pouring rain, looking for worms. Before it got dark I helped him find one under a stepping stone. After I got soaked I went in. Half an hour later he called me from outside the screen door. I figured that he was ready to come in, but he said, "Come help me find the worms. Where's the worms?"

Greg & Desere watched him while we went to the movies one weekend last month. Desere told me the other night that, round about 10PM they were playing with some figurine type toys, wondering when he'd get tired, when he told them that he wanted to get the owl. They told him that was fine and that he should go get it, figuring that it was in the other room. To their amazment, he unlocked the back door, slid it open, stepped out and screamed at the top of his lungs "Owl, come on, OWL..." for a few minutes, apparently calling the real owl that lives in the oaks past our back fence.

He sings the Cake lyrics "Where's the air, where's the air, too much carbon monoxide for me to bear" quite well. We sing it together in the SUV, ironically.

During a 10+minute phone conversation with my mother yesterday, the longest he's ever had, after pretending to be a tiger, roaring & such, he told her "I'm coming to hurt you".

Today, because our washer & dryer are temporarily out of service, he and I did 13 loads of laundry at the laundromat together. Several fellow launderers helped me, seeing the stress level & all, by feeding him, wiping his hands & face, and letting him hang with their groups. He got his introduction to Otter Pop type popsicles. Real nice folks there in Oakland (57th St. and Adeline, I don't like the one by our house). An amazing day. Camille came and helped for the last half hour or so, a veritable blessing. I found myself fairly drenched with sweat on the way home.